


there is no happy ending for fools and ghosts.

by SirenSong



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Original Character(s), The Correspondence (Fallen London), The Great Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 08:51:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1463206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirenSong/pseuds/SirenSong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Mum told him to never ever ever look at the signs but she’s dead now.” Or how the Polysemous Painter loses his mother to the waters and his attempts to cope afterwards. Told in snippets of the past and present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there is no happy ending for fools and ghosts.

**Author's Note:**

> For the Writing the Correspondence contest found in the Failbetter forums. The work has been edited to fix spelling and grammar issues that I missed but, beyond that, is still the same entry I submitted for it.

**Day -1461**

“The world is not a kind place.”

He learns this from a grave man who visits him when mum and father are away, his grey eyes staring at him as if searching for something. To see if this lesson sticks to the mind of the little boy in front of him.

He doesn’t pay much attention to the lesson. He’s still a child, more interested in the bright colors of his drawings and the bright lies his parents have taught him. Instead he opts to continue doodling out the green of trees and the brilliant sunshine he’s never seen before in his life, laughing himself silly when some of his white chalk accidentally draws over his friend’s hand.

It contrasts with the man’s skin so beautifully, he thinks then.

A few weeks later the grave man ends up in a grave, those grey eyes staring no more due to the game of shadows he played and how he played it wrong. At the funeral that smelled of lilies and grief, as people sang choral requiems until the roof of the church shook from sorrow, the little boy feels a strange tremor run through him as he stares down at the coffin while clutching to his mother’s mourning dress with fear and apprehension.

(He doesn’t recognize it yet but later on he does. It is realization of the lesson he ignored showing a terrible and raw example.)

**Day 89**

People keep asking if he’s okay, if he needs to talk. They comment on his appearance, his slumped posture and his lightless eyes. They ask and ask and ask and it takes all the self-control he has to not strangle someone. Which isn’t a lot, he admits but it won’t do his father any good if he was packed off to the Tomb-Colonies over some scandal in the midst of this tragedy they were facing.

A reckless hedonist he maybe at times, he won’t cause his father any more grief. The man has so much to deal with as it is. But, the Painter tells himself; he’ll stab the next person who asks those questions again.

**Day 91**

His father asks if he’s okay, if he needs to talk.

Much as he wishes to follow on with his promise, he notices there’s a sadness to his father and isn’t that heartless to his father’s grief.

Stirring the spoon in the thick mushroom porridge, he simply shakes his head and demurs with a throwaway comment about a project he needs to finish soon. Landscape painting of the city. It isn’t a lie.

Except it is. He plans to head towards the Parlor of Virtue and drown his sorrows in Singing Jenny and perfumed boudoirs. His father doesn’t bother to ask any more questions and leaves him be to his frustration and his relief.

**Day 7**

They still have no word of survivors.

A friend of his father’s informs him this when dropping by the house to check on him, the Diligent Inspector’s face full of regret and shame like it was _their_ fault the boat sunk down to the watery depths of the cruel Zee. They swear they’ll expand their search, bring in more men. Only right to help the family of one of their own, after all.

They promise him they’ll keep looking, search through the debris and the Drownies – They’ll find something, somewhere out there. The Painter just smiles and thanks the woman for trying.

 _It isn’t a surprise_.

He tells himself that as he draws the hard lines of his mother’s eyes that are (were) filled with dark stars and the sharp curve of her smile. With how far away the zhip had traveled when the bomb exploded, either the coldness in the air would claim the passengers or the Zee monsters in the waters would.

 _It isn’t a surprise_. He tells himself this as the greenish light of the candle next to him burns down at last – hours and hours later, leaving him in the dark of the city and of his home. _It doesn’t mean it would hurt any less._

**Day 18**

If there’s a silver lining – a glimmer or a sliver – to this situation is that people are less likely to comment on your appearance.

If people notice he’s been wearing the same morning suit since the zhip sinking, they say no word. If friends see the stains of sweat, tears, and wine on the once brisk clean outfit, they focus on the airs of London instead and chatter about the mustachioed slagger they had to share a carriage with earlier that day.

Is there’s a dark side – an eclipse or an abyss – to this situation is that people are less likely to comment on your appearance.

If he has his mother’s hands, the curve of his mother’s eyes, than no one dares speak a word about it. They talk about the latest play and gossip about the strange woman with unsettling amber eyes.

Either way he feels dead when these things are ignored. They’re _there_ for a reason.

**Day 105**

Her voice is what he remembers the most about her. In the daze of Greyfields and late nights, it sounds so clear in his ears.

It was lulling. The best way to describe it, lulling for it was soothing and simple and there is ( _was_ ) a melodic ring to the end of her words when she’s happy or calm. Now her voice is mute. Her lungs filled with the dark waters, her mouth open in a perpetual— Scream? Cry? He tries to imagine his mother shouting or screaming. He can’t. The only time he’s ever heard her upset is after a nasty row with father. About something wretched enough it has father charge out of the house and mum weeping in the bedroom.

He remembers her haggard sound that was her crying, her shoulders shaking from the ferocity of her sorrow, and the bitter taste of tears in his mouth and

Wait. The taste of tears is real. It’s coming from him.

Oh.

He reaches for another glass of wine, washing the sharp taste of salt with mushroom and regret.

**Day 77**

He hears about the nightmares that happen here in the city. Not that too much of a surprise, where devils walk among priests and Rubbery Men hawk their sticky amber. He knows of the nightmares about dead men in parties and bloody-handed queens in burning castles. He knows of dreams of thunder and of light that make the dreamer scream themselves awake.

He never had them, the nightmares. His parents made sure he slept soundly at night with a teaspoon of laudanum before he toddled off to bed, letting him sleep in a deep white slumber. He wants them now. They’ll make him scream, they’ll make his heart pound, and they’ll make him feel more alive than he has for the past few months. He asks his friends to tell him stories and he read bloodcurdling tales when they deny him after they see the look in his eye. He traverses through seedy alleys and tours grisly crime scenes.

But he dreams not of nightmares when he goes to bed. He dreams of little chubby hands pulling on a day dress, the colors dark as the Zee, while begging and pleading for – _mum mum mummy!_ – the person to turn around and tell him all is fine. Tell him everything is okay. That everything will be okay. They turn around and look at him, their dark eyes full of stars, and tell him all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

Then they lean down to press a kiss and all is right in the world for the boy and the person as he wrapped in warmth and love and the smell of lavender.

It makes him scream himself awake all the same so perhaps he did get what he wanted.

**Day -2556**

He always needs mum to be the one who tucks him in at night. Not his Haggard Governess. Not his Mild Orator. Not even father. It has to be mum for his world to be right.

Tonight they talk in a candid manner. Maybe it was the late hour and her apology for taking so long, the loneliness she feels for being the only adult awake in the house right now. He cares not, beaming much as a boy of seven would be. She’s treating him like an adult with how she speaks to him, laughs at his jokes and gives him looks at his cheekier comments.

“… And though your father didn’t want me to tell you about this, I thought you should know that we’re going to Dauncey’s tomorrow.” He wrinkles his nose at that. He hated fittings and the tailor there was a bore with his stories about the Palace that a child had no interest in. “… I know sweetie, I know. I never did like shopping there myself. Too close to the Bazaar for my liking.”

“The Bazaar?” He thinks he knows what that is. Those funny black spirals, right?

“Yes, because of the Correspondence.” She seems tense. “The symbols that glow. You know those, of course.”

Of course he does. They’re on his arms after all. What he knows the most about the strange letters are the phrases that he seems to understand except not really. Passions of a priest who consumed thousands in his hate. An overwhelming jealousy against an adored sibling that soon causes someone’s death by drowning. The voices that recalls a shameful place and how they came to their disgrace. Strange and unnerving things like that.

“Yes,” he says slowly, trying to put two and two together but he can’t find the four of this. “Are the ones on the Bazaar bad?”

“They have powerful meaning. Because they have stories on them and that makes them dangerous. Stories of people who are exceptional and tragic. Very dangerous. They can do things to people if you’re not careful.”

“Is that why they put them on ours arms?” He takes a peek at the marks branded on his skin, seeing _dark opportunities given in return of one’s being_. They’re healing but they’re there, still there. Thanks to people who were curious about mum, about him when he was still in her tummy. People who took him away and while mum and father got him back they still marked him with fire and dark opportunities.

And just like that she’s an adult and a parent again.

She smiles at him because he’s still a child and she’s an adult who saw many, many events and did many, many actions. There’s still a kind quality to her kiss when kissing him goodnight. “Yes, honey. That’s why we have them on ours arms and it’s why we must never ever _ever_ get involved with the signs ever again. Fear them no more.”

“I’ll make sure of that,” she promises.

**Day 301**

He looks for mum on the Bazaar. He remembers what she said about the Bazaar, how stories of exception, of tragedy being marked on the skin of it. Every story has a cast, a plot, and a reason to its story.

Mum’s story must have a reason it ended the way it did. It must.

He tells himself he’s just painting the scenery and it isn’t a lie. He sketches the spirals and glowing lights, he dabs red and black across the lines he’s created and tries tries _tries_ to find her among the passion and the destruction that is transcribed on the monument. Her story is worth mentioning, isn’t it? She was an important person. She had an important job. She was important because she is and without her the Painter feels dull and heavy with wretchedness over the empty space and gaps only her dark eyes full of her stars and her lavender scent are able to fill.

A friend of his finds him there and questions what he’s doing, perhaps seeing the haunted and determined look on his face. He waves their questions away, determined to solve the mystery of where mum is because he sees passions and heartbreaks and sorrows and destructions but he still hasn’t seen mum among them. Not yet.

Soon, he tells himself. Soon he will. See a phrase about dark eyes full of stars and zees that enveloped lavender in its watery embrace.

Mum told him to never ever _ever_ look at the signs but she’s dead now. He can stare at the words all he wants until his eyes throb and his mouth feels like dust. Until he feels more than just tears and sweat run down his skin and the back of his head feels like its about to be devoured in knowledge and flames.

A gaggle of his friends try to take him away after some time and he puts up a fight. He isn’t a dangerous individual by any means, he likes to think himself as a person relies more on watchfulness and persuasiveness, but he puts up a good fight as they wretch him away from his spot. Causes a terribly noisy scene while he kicks and screams and bites and tells them to bugger off he needs to find mum, he needs a few more minutes. Just a few more minutes. He’ll see her among the symbols, the lights. He will. He will.

(He never does.)

**Day 62**

As he expected, the funeral is depressing to be in. He wears a dark suit, the material heavy and thick as the grief that lingers on him. The cut is impeccable, the suit giving him a respectable and dignified air around him until someone looks him in the eye.

No one comments on his face, his hands. They’re from mum and no one wants to speak of her despite this funeral that is for her body they haven’t found. (And will never find.)

His father speaks little. Only opening his mouth to say _thank you_ to the friends and the colleagues and the others who offer their condolences, their pity, and other useless trinkets of comfort. So it lands on him to give the speech about his mum, sweet and sharp mum who played in the game of shadows and played it wrong. He spent days preparing his speech, writing draft after draft trying to pen his inspirations about the virtues of mum with quill and ink. He has it memorized after hours of practice. He has it the words ready. He **does**.

And yet for all his preparation he finds himself tongue-tied when he gets to the podium. People stare and wait for his words and wait for his speech and he finds himself failing this straightforward challenge. His cheeks burn and the smell of lilies is to blame, he thinks while staring back at the faceless crowd. The lilies choke him because it reminds him of another funeral he’s been in the past, a funeral of a grave man who once told him the world is not kind and mum now knows that because she’s dead and she’s never coming back and

and

he can’t **breath** period he can’t see he feels like he’ll break apart and become the first ruins in this city so he needs to get out and make distance between him and these gaps and silences here mum should be because he—

_she gives him a look and looks so sad and hurt by his words and yet she says nothing and_

—ignores the cries and the protests from the others as his exit out of the church is loud and dramatic but he cares not for it. His departure causes a stir among society and the constables who attended it, no doubt thinking him a brazen boy. He doesn’t care. He just needs to get out of there; he needs to escape the choking smell of lilies and the choral requiems that will soon shake the roof of the church with sorrow.

**Day -4276**

Mum’s job is… _something_. He knows what father’s job is. He’s a constable. A serious man who wears the burly blue uniform with pride and certainty. He tells stories of his work sometimes, things he can tell a little boy. Cases that involves criminals and bohemians the occasional Rubbery Man and father weaves exciting tales about chasing after villains and solving crimes in Ladybones Road and Watchmaker’s Hill.

That can’t be said about mum. No stories pass her lips, only an occasional cryptic comment bishops and knights. Sometimes she heads off to Spite for work, and sometimes she leaves for Wilmont’s End.

There are days she stays home, those are his favorite days, with him on her lap as she writes letters and reports in backwards letters or in blocks. He tries to help; pointing out she misspells a word here or used a funny phrase there. She only smiles at him, pressing a kiss to his forehead. Never did bother to correct them, now that he thinks about it.

One day he gathers enough courage to ask her the question of what she does for a living.

“Aren’t you a bold little one,” she teases him.

“You didn’t answer me, mum!”

She rolls her eyes, how they twinkled with delight at his stubbornness, and she ponders for a way to answer her child.

“Mummy is a Piece. It sounds strange, I know, but… Think of it as chess. You’ve seen mummy and daddy play it before, haven’t you?” He nods and tries not to giggle when he recalls their latest match, how much father grumbled when he lost against her Luzhin Defence. “There is a goal: To win. There are different players involve and different pieces who have their different roles. Its complicated and confusing and confounding most of the time, truth be told.

“There are the Masters of the Bazaar, I think, the Russians, the Italians, the French… They have their secrets and their weapons. They have the city here as the board, so to speak. It can be a very dangerous game at times, my love.”

Her expression is a sad one this time when she finishes speaking. The trouble frown and distant look in her eyes reminds him of the time he and she went to the funeral of… “Did it have something to do with Mr Spider? How he died?”

They were co-workers after all. She told him himself!

That’s a yes from mum if any. He presses on, knowing he’s pushing his luck as it is. “Why? Why would anyone do that to him? He was nice!”

An expression comes and goes on her face. He is cowed by it, terrified he angered her, but she gathers him up in her arms instead and hugs him tight as she can and he’ll allow.

“Because life is cruel,” she tells him at long last. Her voice breaks at _cruel_. “Because there are pawns that are seen as disposable or too strong for the King and Queen. There are sacrifices that must be made and there is no happy ending for fools and ghosts. Never become one of those two. Okay?”

He hugs her back. Not because he understands but because mum clearly needs it. “I will, mum. I understand.”

Except he doesn’t. Not yet.

 **Day 5467** ( **Day 0** )

He didn’t even say _goodbye_ to her. Or say _I love you_. Nothing like those words. There were no words of sentimentality or affection between mother and child.

That’s what haunts him the most.

They had a fight just as she’s about to board the zhip for yet another job of hers that forces her out to Zee. Something stupid. He can no longer recall the fight but it must be something stupid if that is a detail that he can’t remember when every other word, gesture he can see and hear clear as day.

“I’ll come back soon, okay?”

He folds his arms and slouches, looking more like the child he was than the young man he is despite the morning suit he wore.

(Mum presented him the clothes before they left the house. Made him wear it and cooed however how ‘handsome’ and ‘breathtaking’ he looked. He didn’t care for the comments then, made it a point to make a face and roll his eyes, but oh _how_ he holds them against his heart now.)

 “I don’t care if you don’t come back at all,” are his final words to her.

Father is about to harangue him for his discourtesy to mum but she stops him and—

_He wishes he wishes he wishes he didn’t see the look on her face._

—she just presses a kiss to his forehead and says no more, leaving him alone with the fading scent of lavender.

He hears the explosion from the zhip first before he feels the ground he knows give way when he soon (too late! too late!) realizes that he is being shown a raw and terrible example for a lesson he did not truly understand.

Now he does.


End file.
